Parler, a social network popular on the far-right, resurfaced last week after getting the boot from Amazon, Apple and Google a month ago. Sporting a new identity and CEO, the controversial platform claims to facilitate freedom of speech to its users once again. However, the platform’s return is far from a triumph. Within hours of its relaunch, the site was inaccessible to many. Taking forever to load on computers and giving up on mobiles altogether, the site now seems to have lost its appeal to users who claim to have moved onto platforms like Telegram, Gab and MeWe.

Initially blacklisted for the proliferation of election-related misinformation and call for violence in ties with the Capitol riots, Parler came under heavy scrutiny after GPS data proved that some members of the platform had breached the Capitol themselves. Despite the controversy, Parler showed no signs of stepping up to its moderation while Twitter and Facebook were quick to remove former President Donald Trump and members of the QAnon conspiracy theory from their platforms.

Though this move provided Parler with a window, where the platform witnessed a surge of new users consisting majorly of pro-Trump supporters and conspiracy theorists, the wave was short-lived. Amazon was the first to kick Parler from its web-hosting service, followed by Google who yanked the platform’s smartphone app from Play Store for allowing postings that seek “to incite ongoing violence in the US.” Apple was next in line, claiming that the platform was being used to “plan and facilitate yet further illegal and dangerous activities.”

Much went down while the platform was dormant. The company fired its co-founder and CEO, John Matze, after he pushed the platform to crack down on domestic terrorists and violence in order to get the app back in stores again. An investigation also revealed Parler’s plans of selling shares in exchange for former President Donald Trump signing up and posting exclusively on the platform. Though the negotiations fell through, Parler was later revealed to have played a central role in helping identify Capitol rioters using videos posted by users. These videos were used during the former president’s impeachment trial.

A month later, #ParlerIsBack, announcing its plans to relaunch along the lines of “We will not be cancelled.” To back up those claims and beat the moderation game, Parler has introduced a string of guidelines, which according to the platform, are “viewpoint neutral.” The guidelines include the deployment of a “privacy-preserving process” using human and AI moderators to monitor content that threatens or incites violence. The platform also provides an appeal process for users who believe their content had been taken down due to an error. Another feature is the “trolling filter” which claims to hide all posts that attack users based on race, sex, sexual orientation or religion. However, those who want to view the content will be allowed to do so by clicking through the filter.

With Mark Meckler, one of the early creators of the Tea Party movement at the helm as the interim CEO, the platform is supposedly rebuilt on independent technology and is “not reliant on so-called ‘Big Tech’ for its operations”—a lesson which Meckler claims to have learned from Parler’s blacklisting. “When Parler was taken offline in January by those who desire to silence tens of millions of Americans, our team came together, determined to keep our promise to our highly engaged community that we would return stronger than ever,” Meckler said in a statement, welcoming everyone back onto the platform.

Little did he know that these so-called ‘target users’ would have moved on in under a month. Tracing common refrains on various pro-Trump and QAnon forums, Vice reports an influx of “It’s a trap” and “Parler is done, bro”-s. Users on these sites suggested that Parler was back online as an “NSA honeypot” designed to allow the government to capture information about right-wing groups.

Vice also notes the flock of Parler’s users to Telegram, an encrypted-messaging app where members of various QAnon channels themselves state their disinterest in returning to the controversial platform, instead preferring their new home. Gab is yet another platform that has seen a massive spike in users following Parler’s demise. The free speech-focused social network has become the latest hotspot for racists and QAnon supporters.

Parler CEO removed. Parler 70TB user data leaked. ITS a classic trap. DO NOT GO THERE.

— The Watcher (@Maddy2105) February 15, 2021

I just made my first #Parler account! I just had to provide my SSN, my drivers license, a list of my allergies, a photo of me naked, and proof I was at the Capitol during the coup!

It’s just THAT easy!

— Gritty Get Litty 🚩 (@GrittyGetLitty) February 15, 2021

#Parler's new mobile web server has been discovered pic.twitter.com/BaZrSBWSdr

— Rik (The Door Technician) Villanueva (@CadBanesBounty) February 15, 2021

With Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store still barring Parler’s distribution, it is unclear if the platform is here to stay. The fact that Parler doesn’t control its own servers, instead relying wholly on the web-hosting service, SkySilk further questions its future. However, Meckler backs up Parler in his recent statement, “Parler is being run by an experienced team and is here to stay. We will thrive as the premier social media platform dedicated to free speech, privacy and civil dialogue,” which could only mean two things: either Parler will test tech giants in new ways or sit ducks in the process. It’s all a matter of time, maybe another month?

It’s been said that QAnon is the mother of all conspiracy theories. Since its modest beginnings with Pizzagate in 2016, QAnon has grown from a fringe movement to a seemingly all-inclusive convergence of multiple right-wing conspiracy theories related to COVID-19, vaccines, 5G networks, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, and a “Deep State” cabal that harvests adrenochrome from children. Some have gone so far as to claim that QAnon has become a new American religion.

By the end of 2020, an NPR/Ipsos poll confirmed broad support for some of the beliefs falling underneath the wide QAnon umbrella. Nearly 40 per cent of Americans endorsed belief that the “Deep State” was working to undermine President Trump and as many as 1 in 3 believed that voter fraud helped Joe Biden win the presidential election. The claim that “a group of Satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media” was rated as false by a mere 47 per cent of respondents. But ironically, 83 per cent voiced concern about the spread of false information.

How can we explain why so many people believe in things not supported by empirical evidence? How did people come to believe in Pizzagate, the conspiracy theory that Hilary Clinton was running a child pornography ring out of the basement of a pizzeria that actually had no basement? How did people believe something as obscure and lacking in evidence as “Frazzledrip,” another conspiracy theory claim that Clinton was filmed tearing off the face of a child, wearing it as a mask, and then drinking the child’s blood?

Although a common temptation is to invoke mental illness or delusional thinking as an explanation, such accounts mostly fall flat. For one thing, surveys have consistently shown that about half of the population believes in at least one conspiracy theory. So conspiracy theory beliefs, like religious beliefs, are normal, unless we want to start proposing that half the population has a psychotic disorder.

Although psychology research has found some support for a kind of subclinical paranoia being related to conspiracy theory belief, most findings indicate that it is a matter of more quantitative differences in certain subtle ‘cognitive quirks’ that we all tend to have to some degree. For example, greater needs for closure, certainty, and control could explain why some tend to embrace conspiracy theories during times of crisis and chaos.

Psychological needs for uniqueness can explain how belief in conspiracy theories are often rewarding, based on believers’ fantasy of “seeing the light” in a way that “uncritical sheep” do not. Lack of analytical thinking and ‘bullshit receptivity’ have also been implicated in conspiracy theory belief, but these are also widespread liabilities of normal human brains and results of poor education, not deficits of psychopathology per se.

A more convincing account of QAnon conspiracy theories like Pizzagate and Frazzledrip lies at the level of social interaction and information science as opposed to psychiatric disorder. Conspiracy theories involve a negation of conventional explanations in favour of an alternative account featuring shadowy forces with malevolent intent. Therefore, mistrust—not clinical paranoia—is often the central feature of conspiracy theory belief.

QAnon conspiracy theories that, at their core, demonise left-wing liberals and “globalists” were born out of an emerging right-wing American populism and have come to be widely adopted within the Republican party. Appearing around the time of Clinton’s campaign against Donald Trump during the 2016 Presidential race, conspiracy theories like Pizzagate and Frazzledrip that maligned her were embraced because many viewed her as a literal enemy, just as the so-called “birthers” endorsed conspiracy theories about Barack Obama’s citizenship 8 years before. While mistrust can be earned, when it underlies conspiracy theory belief, it’s often fueled by prejudices of “othering” in the form of hyper-partisanship, racism, or misogyny.

Mistrust of others, and especially of authoritative sources of information, results in a vulnerability to misinformation that is widely available within today’s media landscape. When Edgar Maddison Welch decided to “self-investigate” Pizzagate armed with a rifle, he was misinformed by sources like Reddit and InfoWars that had presented the supposed “evidence” of Clinton’s guilt. Only later, when Welch was arrested, did he concede that “the intel on this wasn’t 100%.” Likewise, the purported “evidence” for Frazzledrip was widely claimed within YouTube videos back in 2018, despite the fact that no actual video of Clinton cutting off a child’s face ever existed.

The democratisation of knowledge in the modern era of online media has resulted in a ‘post-truth’ world in which ‘fake news’ has become a household word, but no one can agree on which information sources are to be trusted. Consequently, trust has largely become a matter of confirmation bias and motivated reasoning aligned with partisan identities, with little agreement about what constitutes objective evidence anymore.

Human beings are fond of myths that revere our heroes and demonise our enemies. We’re also fond of the self-deception that we think rationally and are always right. The reality is that we come to hold beliefs based on intuition, subjective experience, and faith in trusted sources of transmitted information, independent of veracity. It’s no coincidence that Pizzagate, Frazzledrip, and QAnon have been largely online phenomena that have flourished in an era of hyper-partisanship where the other side is regarded as a mortal enemy and existential threat. So long as that continues, conspiracy theories will continue to flourish.

Joseph Pierre, MD is a Health Sciences Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioural Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the Acting Chief of Mental Health Community Care Systems at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System. His column titled Psych Unseen and published in Psychology Today draws from the perspectives of psychiatry, neuroscience, psychology, and evidence-based medicine to address timely topics related to mental illness, human behaviour, and how we come to hold popular and not-so-popular beliefs.